Image source: SavoryCrowdad/CC BY-SA 4.0

Key Points

• India is a country located in South Asia, part of the World Health Organization’s South-East Asia Region.
• It had a population in 2022 of 1.42 billion. Amongst those aged 15+, tobacco use prevalence is 28.6%.
• Smoking prevalence in India is 10.7%. However, the most popular form of tobacco in India is smokeless tobacco, with use prevalence of 21.4%.
• India ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2004, and the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products in 2018.
• The Indian cigarette market is dominated by four companies, which together accounted for 98% of sales in 2022. ITC Limited holds by far the largest market share, at over 73%.
• The tobacco industry has deployed a wide range of tactics in India in recent years, including mobilisation of front groups and third parties; litigation against tobacco control measures such as graphic health warnings; and corporate social responsibility, including in partnership with government.

Since the early 2000s, India has made significant progress in tobacco control, introducing a comprehensive tobacco control law in 2004, reducing the affordability of tobacco products, and introducing graphic health warnings (GHWs) consistent with best practice worldwide.¹² However, major challenges persist. The wide range of tobacco products available in India makes regulation and enforcement particularly complicated. The Indian state is also a major shareholder of ITC Limited, which has by far the largest share of the Indian market. This means that the government has an interest in socio-economic issues – such as ensuring the welfare of farmers and manual labourers working in the Indian tobacco industry, and protection of exports – as well as in public health.³

India remains the world’s second largest consumer, producer and exporter of tobacco.⁴⁵

Tobacco Use in India

In 2022, the population of India was 1.42 billion.⁶ In the 2016-17 Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS), approximately 29% of the population aged 15+ reported current tobacco use – over 42% of males, and over 14% of females.²⁷ This means that in absolute numbers, there were almost 267 million tobacco users in India aged 15 and over.⁴ In the 2019 Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS), amongst adolescents aged from 13 to 15, 8.5% reported using some form of tobacco – nearly 10% of males, and over 7% of females.²⁸

Amongst India’s smokers, the most popular product was not factory-made cigarettes but bidis: cigarettes rolled by hand in a dried leaf of the tendu tree. 7.7% of Indian adults reported smoking bidis, compared to 4% who smoked cigarettes.⁷

However, the most popular tobacco product in India overall is smokeless tobacco (SLT). More than 21% of Indians aged 15 and over reported being SLT users, compared to less than 11% who smoked, whether cigarettes, bidis, or both.²⁷ SLT use is also significant amongst women and girls: nearly 13% of females aged 15 and over were SLT users, compared to 2% who smoked.²⁷ The majority of female tobacco users in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are SLT users in India and Bangladesh.⁹ However, amongst adolescent tobacco users, smoking is more common than SLT use. Over 7% of adolescents reported current smoking, compared to just over 4% who were SLT users.²⁸

India has the second highest number of oral cancer cases globally, accounting for a third of the total.¹⁰ More than 90% of India’s oral cancer cases are caused by tobacco use and of these, more than half are caused by SLT.¹¹ The poor and less educated are worst affected, with much higher SLT use prevalence amongst these sections of the population.¹¹ There were also over a million deaths attributable to smoking in 2019, accounting for nearly 11% of all mortality in India that year.¹²

A 2020 study put the economic cost of all illness and death attributable to tobacco use between 2017 and 2018 for those over 35 years of age at US$27.5 billion.¹³ Smoking accounted for 74% of this cost; smokeless tobacco 26%.¹³ Direct medical costs alone amounted to 5.3% of all health expenditure.¹³ However, the excise tax revenue from tobacco the previous year was just 12.2% of its economic cost.¹³ In simple terms, the economic burden of tobacco use is more than eight times the value of revenue the Indian government receives in excise from tobacco products.¹³ This economic burden accounts for over 1% of India’s GDP.¹³

Tobacco in India

Market share and leading brands

The Indian cigarette market is dominated by four companies:  ITC Limited, Godfrey Phillips India Limited (GPI), VST Industries Ltd., and Philip Morris International (PMI), which together accounted for 98% of sales in 2022.¹⁴

India banned foreign direct investment in tobacco manufacturing in 2010, which means that the transnational tobacco companies (TTCs) can only access the Indian market via shareholdings and licensing agreements with local producers.¹⁵¹⁶

ITC Limited

ITC Limited (formerly India Tobacco Company Limited), dominates the Indian tobacco market, with a share of over 73% in 2022.¹⁴ Its largest shareholder is British American Tobacco (BAT), which held just under 30% of shares until March 2024.¹⁷¹⁸ The Indian state is also a major shareholder, via various state-owned insurance corporations and investment portfolios.¹⁸ Its products include India’s three bestselling brands of cigarettes: Gold Flake, Wills and Scissors.¹⁹

In a presentation to investors in June 2023, BAT CEO Tadeu Marroco stressed the importance of the company retaining at least a 25% shareholding in ITC, given that this provides BAT with seats on the ITC board and the right to veto company resolutions.²⁰ Marroco also highlighted the potential of the vast Indian market in terms of newer nicotine and tobacco products, particularly oral products such as nicotine pouches.²⁰ In March 2024, BAT reduced its holdings in ITC to 25.5%.²¹For more details see ITC Limited.

Godfrey Phillips India Limited (GPI)

GPI had a market share of almost 10% in 2022, the second largest after ITC.¹⁴ PMI is the second-largest shareholder with a stake of just over 25%.²² Major brands include Four Square, Cavenders and Tipper.¹⁹

VST Industries Ltd

VST, formerly Vazir Sultan Tobacco Company, had a market share of over 9% in 2022, the third largest.¹⁴ With a stake of over 32%, BAT is its largest shareholder.²³ Its major brands include Total, Charms and Charminar.¹⁹

TTCs’ licensing agreements

PMI has a licensing agreement with GPI, under which GPI manufactures and sells the brands Marlboro and Red & White in India, though PMI retains brand ownership internationally.¹⁴¹⁹²⁴ This gives PMI a 5.4% market share from a global ownership perspective.¹⁴ Similarly, ITC manufactures and sells the brands Berkeley and Benson & Hedges in India, though Japan Tobacco International and British American Tobacco are the global owners, respectively.¹⁴¹⁹ Both companies have a market share of less than 2%.¹⁴

• For more information on the tobacco industry in India, please see the Tobacco Supply Chain Database.

Smokeless tobacco and bidis

The Indian smokeless tobacco industry is based largely on small scale, rural production, for which accurate data is not available.²⁵ Local manufacturers account for significant segments of the market in several regions of India.²⁵ Similarly, bidi production depends largely on small home-based manufacturing operations and accurate data is not available.²⁵

At the national level, the biggest companies in the chewing tobacco/gutkha (see section “Undermining the gutkha ban”) market are believed to be Dhariwal Industries, Dharampal Satyapal (DS Group) and Som Sugandh Industries, which together accounted for around a quarter of sales in 2010.²⁵ There is also interest from the big cigarette companies in smokeless tobacco; Godfrey Phillips launched its own range of chewing products in 2010.²⁶ A 2021 paper found that 93% of SLT products bought in India were non-compliant with packaging regulations: either they did not have graphic health warnings, or the warnings were too small.²⁷

Tobacco farming

India is the world’s second biggest tobacco producer after China, producing over 766,000 tonnes of leaf in 2020.²⁸ This accounts for 9% of all global production.⁵ Though tobacco production in India has increased significantly in recent decades – from 438,500 tonnes in 1980 – it has fallen slightly from a high of 830,000 tonnes in 2011.²⁹

Child labour

Indian bidis feature on the U.S. Department of Labor’s 2022 List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor.³⁰ While information on child labour in the bidi industry is not widely available, a study published in 2009 found that more than 1.7 million children worked rolling bidis in India.³¹ This disproportionately affects girls, who are often drawn into the industry to support their families. Bidi rollers may work 10 to 14-hour days to produce over 1,000 bidis, in what a BBC report from 2012 described as “slave-like working conditions”.³¹

Tobacco and the economy

India is the world’s second largest exporter of tobacco leaf, after Brazil.⁵ According to UN Comtrade, India exported nearly US$816 million in raw tobacco in 2022, compared to nearly $21 million in imports.³²³³ Export figures for 2021-2022 from the Indian Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) – a trust established by the Indian Department of Commerce – were slightly higher, at US$842 million.⁵

India exports tobacco to more than 115 countries around the world, the biggest recipient of which is Belgium, which accounts for around 18% of India’s total tobacco exports. Other major export destinations for Indian tobacco include the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and the United States.⁵

India is also a major net exporter of cigarettes. According to UN Comtrade, it exported over US$100 million in cigarettes in 2022, compared to nearly $26 million in imports.³⁴³⁵

According to IBEF, the tobacco industry in India employs about 36 million people in farming, processing, manufacturing and export activities.⁵

Illicit trade

The Tobacco Institute of India, an industry body established by ITC, GPI and VST in 1992, puts the scale of the illicit tobacco trade at a quarter of the market.³⁶ However, independent studies put that figure much lower, at around 3% to 6%.³⁷ This makes illicit trade in India relatively small by global standards.³⁸ A 2018 study, which found that 2.73% of the empty cigarette packs collected in India were illicit, noted significant differences across the country.³⁹ Areas with greater illicit trade penetration are often targeted by studies funded by the tobacco industry to exaggerate overall levels of illicit trade.⁴⁰

Studies have also cast doubt on industry claims that tobacco tax increases have led to expansion of illicit trade. For example, according to ITC, tax increases during the period 2012 to 2017 resulted in rapid growth of illicit trade, making India the fourth largest illicit market globally.⁴¹ However, a study published in 2020 by experts from the WHO and the Indian government put the illicit cigarette trade at 6% of the market in 2016-17 – an increase of just 0.9% from 2009-10.³⁸

Similarly, a joint report published in 2017 by the accountancy firm KPMG and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) argued that illicit trade – driven in part by higher taxes on cigarettes – was providing funds for terrorism and organized crime.⁴² However, both ITC and GPI are members of FICCI, which has a history of opposing tobacco control measures in India (see Influencing policy: graphic health warnings). Similarly, KPMG has strong ties with the tobacco industry going back decades, and its work on illicit trade has been strongly criticised elsewhere. Critics argue that KPMG’s research has exaggerated the scale of illicit trade and has been used to oppose tobacco control regulations such as plain packaging.

• For more information, please see STOP’s database of Tobacco Industry Allies.

Tobacco and the environment

A 2018 study estimated that in order to produce 100 billion cigarettes, nearly 67,500 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent were emitted in India in 2010 – the equivalent of 14,544 petrol-powered vehicles driven for a year.⁴³⁴⁴ The industry has also been a major cause of deforestation: it is estimated that 680 square kilometres of scrub forest were destroyed and degraded for tobacco curing and the manufacture of cigarettes and other smoking consumables between 1962 and 2002.⁴⁵

A 2022 study estimated that 170,000 tonnes of waste is produced by the packaging of tobacco products annually in India, two-thirds of which correspond to smokeless tobacco (SLT) products.⁴⁶ Analysis of segregated waste revealed that 73,500 tonnes of plastic, 6,100 tonnes of foil and 1,350 tonnes of used filters are discharged annually into the environment.⁴⁶ Cleaning up this waste costs Indian taxpayers roughly US$766 million every year.⁴⁷

• For more information on the tobacco industry in India, please see the Tobacco Supply Chain Database.

Roadmap to Tobacco Control

India was the eighth country to ratify the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) in 2004.⁴⁸ It ratified the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products in 2018.⁴⁹⁵⁰

The Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA), passed in 2003, is the main comprehensive tobacco control law in India. Amongst other provisions, it banned smoking in most public places, prohibited the advertising of cigarettes and other tobacco products, and banned sales to anyone under the age of 18.⁵¹ Since then, a number of rules have been introduced to aid implementation of COTPA and provide definitions.¹ In 2007-08, the government launched the National Tobacco Control Programme (NTCP), which aimed to reinforce COTPA and facilitate implementation of the tobacco control strategies contained within the WHO FCTC.⁵²

In 2020, an amendment to COTPA was drafted by the Ministry of Health.⁵³ Aiming to further strengthen the original legislation and boost compliance with WHO FCTC, it will abolish designated smoking areas, prohibit the sale of individual cigarettes (single sticks), and raise the legal age required for purchase of tobacco products from 18 to 21.⁵³⁵⁴ However, as of September 2023, this amendment has yet to become law.

Citing concerns about the health impacts of vaping on young people, the Indian government introduced a ban on electronic cigarettes in 2019. The law prohibits the production, manufacture, import, export, transport, sale, distribution, storage and advertisement of e-cigarettes.¹⁵⁵ Though their use remains rare in India as of 2023, the law closes off a huge potential market for e-cigarette companies.⁵⁶

For more details, please see the following websites:

• Legislation by country – India, Tobacco Control Laws, Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids
• India, WHO FCTC Implementation Database, WHO FCTC Secretariat
• Country profile – India, World Health Organization, WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic 2021

Tobacco Industry Interference in India

Tobacco industry tactics in India include mobilisation of front groups and third parties; litigation against tobacco control measures, such as graphic health warnings; and corporate social responsibility, including in partnership with government.

Delaying rollout of larger graphic health warnings

In October 2014, the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare announced its intention to increase the area covered by graphic health warnings (GHWs) on tobacco products, from 40% to 85%.⁵⁷ GHWs are a well-established, evidence-based and cost-effective measure of reducing tobacco use.⁵⁸ They may also be particularly effective in India, given both the country’s linguistic diversity and its literacy rate (as of 2018, over a quarter of the population was unable to read or write).⁵⁹⁶⁰

The tobacco industry deployed various tactics in an attempt to block this legislation. These included mobilising third parties and front groups, spreading misleading information, and submitting more than 30 legal challenges in state-level courts throughout India.⁶¹⁶²

Third parties and front groups which mobilised against the legislation included the following:

• The All India Bidi Federation
• The Tobacco Institute of India
• The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)
• The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)
• The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM)
• The Federation of All India Farmer Associations (FAIFA)
• The Retailers Association of India (RAI)
• The International Tobacco Growers Association (ITGA)

These groups wrote letters to and met with policy makers, launched campaigns in the media against the proposal, and filed legal challenges.⁶¹⁶²

For example, FAIFA bought full-page advertisements in leading national newspapers, claiming that larger GHWs would be detrimental to the livelihoods of tobacco farmers and fuel the illicit trade.⁶¹⁶³ FAIFA, CII and FICCI all wrote letters to the Minister of Health, J.P. Nadda, echoing these arguments.⁶⁴⁶⁵ The Tobacco Institute of India filed a legal challenge against the government in the High Court of Karnataka.⁶⁶ Finally, ASSOCHAM addressed a communiqué to the government, stating that the GHWs would endanger the livelihoods of more than 45 million people and lead to a flood of illicit imports.⁶⁷

These industry strategies succeeded in delaying the rollout of the 85% GHWs for a year, from April 2015 until April 2016.⁶⁸ However, the legal challenges continued even after implementation. In 2017, the High Court of Karnataka ruled that India should revert to the pre-2016 40% warnings. This decision was overruled in 2018 by the Indian Supreme Court and the 85% warnings have remained in force ever since.⁶²

The eventual introduction of the 85% GHWs saw India jump from 136^th to third position in the global ranking for size of health warnings on tobacco products.⁶⁹

Undermining the gutkha ban

Gutkha, one of India’s most popular smokeless tobacco (SLT) products, is a mix of crushed Areca nut (a well-known risk factor for several cancers even when consumed without tobacco), with tobacco, catechu, paraffin, slaked lime and flavourings.⁷⁰⁷¹ Highly addictive and very cheap, gutkha is popular amongst women and young people.⁷²

Since 2012, there have been state-level bans throughout the country in an attempt to reduce its prevalence, but it remains widely available.⁷³⁷⁴ Producers have found ways to circumvent the bans, such as by packaging and selling the constituent ingredients of gutkha separately.⁷⁴⁷⁵

In the state of Tamil Nadu, gutkha remained widely available despite being banned in 2013.⁷⁶⁷⁷ In 2016, officials from India’s Income Tax Department discovered details of a series of suspected bribes worth nearly US$6 million made by leading manufacturer MDM to public officials, allegedly to facilitate the storage, transport and sale of gutkha.⁶¹⁷⁶⁷⁸

Alleged recipients of bribes included a government minister, police officers and senior civil servants.⁷⁹ In November 2022, after four years of investigations in three states, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation filed charges against 21 individuals.⁷⁹⁷⁶

Corporate social responsibility: partnerships with government

Tobacco companies often use corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives to enhance their public image and corporate reputation.

In the implementation guidelines for Article 5.3 of the WHO FCTC, the WHO states that these activities fall within its definition of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship – and should therefore not be endorsed by Parties to the treaty.⁸⁰ However, in India, under the Companies Act 2013, all large corporations are required to spend at least 2% of their average net profit in the previous three years on CSR.⁸¹ This helps to legitimise tobacco industry CSR, as companies argue they are only fulfilling their legal duties.³In its sustainability reporting, ITC states that its CSR initiatives fall within the scope of the 2013 legislation.⁸²

ITC has contributed frequently to government programmes and has worked with government institutions.³ For example, in 2017, ITC contributed to a fund set up by the Indian government to attract funding from corporations and private donors for the provision of sanitation and clean drinking water; and to the Clean Ganga Fund, established by the government to rehabilitate the River Ganges.⁸² In his speech to shareholders at the 2017 AGM, the then ITC CEO cited several public-private partnerships with state governments in India on water management projects, stating that they aligned with a national programme which aimed to expand irrigation coverage and improve efficiency of water use.⁸³⁸⁴

This type of public-private CSR was particularly widespread during the COVID-19 pandemic. In total, between March and June 2020, the Indian tobacco industry contributed around US$36.7 million in donations to various government funds, both at federal and state level.⁸¹ The industry also partnered with other stakeholders, including NGOs, other private sector actors and even popular Bollywood singers. ITC was the biggest cash and in-kind contributor.⁸¹⁸⁵

Corporate trademarks were widely visible during these CSR activities, and the initiatives were publicised in leading newspapers and by senior politicians.⁸¹⁸⁶⁸⁷

• For more on tobacco industry activity during the pandemic, please see the COVID-19 Tobacco Tactics page and the COVID-19 monitoring database.

Relevant Links

• Global Adult Tobacco Survey GATS 2 India 2016-17, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India
• Report on Tobacco Industry Interference in India – Case Studies, S. Goel, S. Sekhar Kar, Resource Centre for Tobacco Control
• Interference by Big Tobacco and Affiliates in Tobacco Control in South Asia, Institute of Public Health Bengaluru and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease
• Crooked Nine: Nine Ways the Tobacco Industry Undermines Health Policy, Vital Strategies
• National Report: The Environmental Burden of Tobacco Products Wastes in India. Tobacco Use Makes You Ugly, Your Habitat Uglier, SPH AIIMS Jodhpur, ICMR-NICPR, The Union

Tobacco Tactics Resources

• Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM)
• Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)
• ITC Limited

TCRG Research

• Advancing whole-of-government approaches to tobacco control: Article 5.3 and the challenge of policy coordination in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India and Uganda. R.A. Barry, S.M. Abdullah, A. Chugh, S. Hirpa, P. Kumar, D. Male, R. Ralston, T. Wagner-Rizvi, J. Collin, Tobacco Control 2022;31:s46-s52.
• Institutional tensions, corporate social responsibility and district-level governance of tobacco industry interference: analysing challenges in local implementation of Article 5.3 measures in Karnataka, India. P. Kumar, R.A. Barry, M.M. Kulkarni, V.G. Kamath, R. Ralston, J. Collin, Tobacco Control 2022;31:s26-s32.
• Developing more detailed taxonomies of tobacco industry political activity in low-income and middle-income countries: qualitative evidence from eight countries, B.K. Matthes, K. Lauber, M. Zatoński, L. Robertson, A.B. Gilmore, BMJ Global Health 2021;6:e004096.

For a comprehensive list of all TCRG publications, including research that evaluates the impact of public health policy, go to TCRG publications.

References

The post India Country Profile appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

In 2009, several retail groups and tobacco companies operating in Hong Kong came together to establish the Tobacco Control Concern Group (TCCG).⁸⁸⁸⁹⁹⁰

TCCG has lobbied the government on tobacco control issues, and has echoed well known industry arguments against taxation, including that increased tax fuels illicit tobacco trade.⁹¹⁸⁸

TCCG retail association members include the Coalition of Hong Kong Newspaper and Magazine Merchants.⁹⁰

Relationship with the tobacco industry

Tobacco companies reported to be part of TCCG include British American Tobacco, Philip Morris International, Hong Kong Federation of Tobacco Industries Limited, and Pacific Cigar Company.⁹⁰

Lobbying against tobacco tax increases

In 2009, TCCG lobbied the government to lower tobacco taxes, claiming that recent tax increases had failed to stop people from smoking and instead promoted the sale of illicit cigarettes, causing a drop in tobacco business.⁸⁸ However, a customs spokesperson noted that cigarette seizures had dropped, and there was no evidence of a growing trend in the sales of illicit cigarettes.⁸⁸ The tobacco industry often uses the argument that increases in tobacco tax will result in an increase in illicit trade.

In 2011, it was reported that TCCG had urged the government to reduce cigarette tax to a “more reasonable level”, stating that “Raising cigarette taxes has been proved to be an ineffective way to help people to quit smoking” and again citing a supposed risk of illicit trade.⁹¹⁸⁸

TCCG also submitted a document to the legislative council on this issue.⁸⁹ This stated that an independent survey had found that the public “strongly opposed the raising of tobacco tax”[translation],⁸⁹ and again repeated the argument that tax increases would not prevent youth smoking, and instead would lead to increases smuggling:

“it is unpractical to push them to give up smoking by substantially raising tobacco tax…poorer students will smoke illicit cigarettes”[translation].⁸⁹

Research has shown that smoking rates in Hong Kong declined between 2009 and 2011, after tobacco tax increases in 2009.⁹² Other research has shown that the industry inflated its estimates of the level of the illicit cigarette trade in Hong Kong.⁹²

TCCG presence on the Legislative Council Health Panel

In October 2015, Clear the Air, a tobacco control advocacy group in Hong Kong, highlighted that two TCCG consultants were sitting on the Health Panel of the Legislative Council. In a letter to the panel, Clear the Air questioned why this was permitted, given TCCG’s connection to the tobacco industry.⁹⁰

Earlier that year in May 2015, those consultants had urged the Government to consult with the tobacco industry regarding a proposal to introduce new tobacco control measures, including an increase in the size of graphic health warnings on cigarette packaging, and suggested extending the ‘grace period’ for new package design.⁹⁰⁹³

Tobacco Tactics Resources

• The Coalition of Hong Kong Newspaper and Magazine Merchants
• Illicit Tobacco Trade
• Countering Industry Arguments Against Plain Packaging

References

The post Tobacco Control Concern Group (TCCG) appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

It has numerous corporate clients, including an association with the tobacco industry that stretches back decades.

Background

Ruder Finn was founded by David Finn and William Ruder in 1948, with singer Perry Como the agency’s first client, and is now one of the world’s biggest privately owned PR agencies.⁹⁵

Ruder Finn represents more than 250 corporations, governments, not-for-profit organisations and start-ups.⁹⁶

It has four main divisions: health and wellness, corporate reputation, technology and innovation, and consumer.⁹⁷

The agency has seven main offices worldwide, in China, India, Singapore, the UK and the US, and includes McDonalds, Mondelez International, PepsiCo, Sanofi, and Volkswagen among its clients.⁹⁸

Ruder Finn employs more than 700 staff and its global revenue rose 10% to $78 million in 2019.⁹⁹

Senior management

As of May 2020, the senior management of Ruder Finn included:¹⁰⁰

• Kathy Bloomgarden, Chief Executive Officer
• Michael Schubert, Chief Innovation Officer
• Peggy Walsh, Global Chief Financial Officer
• Elan Shou, Regional Director of Asia
• Laura Ryan, Executive Vice President, Corporate Communications
• Nick Leonard, UK Managing Director
• Rachel Spielman, Executive Vice President, Storytelling and Media
• Keith Hughes, Executive Vice President, Head of U.S. Corporate Practice at Ruder Finn
• Robin Kim, Global Head of Technology
• Keith Bloomgarden, Head of Operations
• Christie Anbar, Managing Director, Global Healthcare
• Atul Sharma, Managing Director, India
• John Nolan, Executive Vice President, Brand Marketing
• Monica Marshall, Global Lead RF Relate – People. Purpose. Policy

Links with the Tobacco Industry

Ruder Finn’s long relationship with the tobacco industry, dating back to the 1960s, is documented in tobacco industry documents publicly disclosed during a series of US court cases in the 1990s.

The agency worked on public relations and advertising campaigns for Philip Morris (now Philip Morris USA and Philip Morris International), as well as for the Tobacco Institute, a lobbying body formed by the tobacco industry in 1958 in order to communicate its agenda to the US government and public.

It benefitted from a long-standing relationship between George Weissman, former chairman and CEO of Philip Morris, and Ruder Finn co-founders David Finn and William Ruder.¹⁰¹

The agency resumed its relationship with the tobacco firm in 2019, albeit at arms length. Ruder Finn was given a seven-figure sum to work for the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. The Foundation says that it is an independent organisation but is solely funded by Philip Morris. (For more on the work with the Foundation see below).

1960s

On 11 January 1964, the US Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health released its first report and concluded that smoking causes lung cancer and laryngeal cancer in men and is a probable cause of lung cancer in women.¹⁰²

Three months later, Philip Morris signed an agreement with Ruder Finn.¹⁰³

The agency engaged in a campaign to deny the scientific evidence that smoking causes cancer and diffuse public fears over the safety of smoking. In one such example, in a press release issued on 28 October 1968, James C. Bowling, Vice President for Philip Morris Incorporated, called for “care, cooperation and confidence” and urged an attempt to “find the truth” rather than a “government answer” or an “industry answer” to the problem.¹⁰⁴

During this decade, Ruder Finn’s work included arranging a series of promotional appearances for Philip Morris spokesman Johnny Roventini to accompany the launch of Marlboro Green, a menthol cigarette.¹⁰⁵¹⁰⁶

1970s

On 28 February 1970, Ruder Finn proposed that the tobacco industry position itself as “a responsible industry with a strong sense of duty and obligation to the public — a position similar to the beer and liquor industry.”¹⁰⁷ A core message of the advertising it recommended was: “We reject the outrageous charges that are now being made against smoking. They simply are not true.”¹⁰⁷

The agency targeted leading scientists in a bid to downplay the risks of smoking. One example was Dr Ernst Wynder, founder of the American Health Foundation, who Ruder Finn took to lunch in June 1973. A note of the lunch stated: “if there were some way that he and the cigarette industry, or he and the food industry could work together and seek out common interests that go toward satisfying the desires of all sides, then I believe this would be an amenable approach for him.”¹⁰⁸

Subsequently, the agency informed Philip Morris: “I thought you might want to see the press kit that we have prepared for the opening of the new facility for Ernie Wynder’s American Health Foundation. We prepared it completely at Ruder & Finn – and please note that we have handled it so there is not one single mention of the problem of smoking and health.”¹⁰⁸

In addition to arranging support for scientific institutions, the agency mounted a series of high-profile art sponsorships to promote Philip Morris and its brands. These included exhibitions at the Whitney Museum in New York and Galeria Bonina de Buenos Aires in Argentina.¹⁰⁹

For more information on how the tobacco industry uses targeted donations to improve its corporate image, visit our page on CSR Strategy. 

Negating the risk

A report for Philip Morris by Ruder Finn at the start of the decade argued that smoking should be far down the list of health priorities. It claimed: “Many, if not most, of the federal government’s findings concerning the dangers of cigarette smoking have not been proven by clinical experiments.”¹¹⁰

The report ‘Cigarette Smoking and Other Hazards to Health and Safety: A Comparison’ cited eight dangers “that are as menacing (or more so) to individual and public health and safety as cigarette smoking.”¹¹⁰ These were: mental illness, accidents, chronic diseases, alcoholism, drug addiction, crime and violence, air pollution and malnutrition and obesity.

It argued that radiation pollution, water pollution and pesticides were “three long-range hazards which, if not prevented or controlled, may pose a potentially much greater threat to life than cigarette smoking.”¹¹⁰ By comparing tobacco to other known threats to human health, the industry sought to minimise and shift the public and scientific community’s focus away from the perceived harm of smoking.

Throughout the seventies the agency also continued its work on sponsorship programmes for Philip Morris ranging from scientific meetings to film festivals. It promoted annual “Philip Morris Science Symposiums” in the mid-seventies, which featured presentations from Nobel laureates.¹¹¹

Ruder Finn also arranged film festivals to promote the US Benson and Hedges and Marlboro brands in San Francisco and Boston during the same period.¹¹²

For more information on the tobacco industry’s historic attempts to influence the scientific agenda, see our page Influencing Science.

1980s

Concerns over a conflict of interest saw the American Academy of Family Physicians stop using Ruder Finn as its PR agency in 1981, in reponse to pressure from anti-smoking organisation Doctors Ought to Care.¹¹³

William Ruder left the agency in 1981 to start his own consultancy, but remained a member of Ruder Finn’s board¹¹⁴ and sat on the Tobacco Institute Communications Committee between 1984 and 1986.¹¹⁵

1990s

When France brought in a ban on tobacco advertising and restrictions on where people could smoke, Philip Morris asked Ruder Finn to devise a corporate affairs programme to strengthen its influence in the country.

The agency proposed:¹¹⁶

“establishing a discrete, credible and effective voice and an institutionalised lobby (or more than one over time) to defend its interests without being visible as Philip Morris ensuring a proactive influence on legislative, regulatory and grass roots initiatives as they develop in order to extend the time frame and environmental space for smokers in France.” and recommended that the “defense of issues surrounding tobacco needs to be done in a third party context – non-tobacco linked experts, sources need to speak on behalf of tobacco interests.”¹¹⁶

This recommendation advocates using front groups to promote tobacco industry interests and influence legislation, effectively outsourcing advocacy for the industry’s agenda.

Ruder Finn also worked on a major arts sponsorship deal that resulted in Philip Morris supporting a history of abstraction exhibition at the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1996.¹¹⁷

In October 1998, Planned TV Arts Washington, a division of Ruder Finn, arranged a radio tour for tobacco consultant John Luik to spread the message of “junk science” in relation to the US Environmental Protection Agency’s warnings over Environmental Tobacco Smoke.¹¹⁸

Discarding the past

During a debate on the ethics of tobacco PR in New York on 8 September 2014, Ruder Finn’s Chief Innovation Officer, Michael Schubert, said:¹¹⁹

“I come from a company that when the surgeon general came out with its warning and it was determined even before the surgeon general came out with this warning but when it started to be explored that cigarettes really were harmful to your health many, many years ago, we resigned all our cigarettes accounts and would not promote cigarette smoking to people.” adding: “You could be promoting selling something and getting people to do something that was not good for them and we didn’t want to be part of that.”

PR for Foundation for a Smoke-Free World

Despite that pronouncement, five-years-later Ruder Finn returned to the sector – though this time working for an organisation which says it is independent of the tobacco industry..

The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World positions itself as an independent scientific organisation aimed at ‘accelerating the end of smoking’ and is solely funded by Philip Morris International.^120121122

In February 2019 the Foundation contracted Ruder Finn to “manage global communications and the Foundation’s annual report.”¹²³ The agency was paid US$2,072,480 by the Foundation in 2019.¹²²

In 2019, Ruder Finn produced a short film featuring Derek Yach, the Foundation’s President.¹²⁴ In the ‘Message from Derek’ film, posted on YouTube on 15 August 2019, Yach called for engagement with smokers, who he claimed have been ostracised from tobacco control. He also said the tobacco industry had an opportunity to change: “What happens if the unthinkable really happens and they are starting to find a way of separating nicotine from the bad stuff?”¹²⁵

In September 2020, Ruder Finn Asia circulated invitations to FSFW’s “15 years of Framework Convention on Tobacco Control” conference.¹²⁶ See our Foundation for a Smoke-Free World page for more detail.

According to their LinkedIn accounts, Ruder Finn’s Brian Laird, Senior Vice President, Healthcare/Consumer Digital & Social,¹²⁷ and Winston Duncan, Account Executive,¹²⁸ are among those working on the Foundation account in 2020.

Other controversial clients

The agency was hired to promote the causes of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina during the Balkan war in the early 1990s.¹²⁹

Ruder Finn also worked for the Global Climate Coalition in 1997, representing the interests of fossil fuel firms lobbying against moves to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.¹³⁰

In 2004, it was brought in to help the US Tuna Foundation fight back against warnings of mercury in canned tuna.¹³¹

Pro-democracy campaigners protested outside Ruder Finn’s London office in 2012 after it emerged that the agency was working for the Maldives government, which had been accused of removing President Mohamed Nasheed in a coup d’etat.¹³²

Relevant Links

Ruder Finn website

Tobacco Tactics Resources

• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World
• Influencing Science
• CSR Strategy

References

The post Ruder Finn appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

In September 2020, FSFW updated its website to reflect that it has lost 14 staff members, which represented approximately 38% of its total staff the previous week.¹³³¹³⁴

Management

• Clifford E. Douglas is President and Chief Executive Officer. Douglas was formerly director of the University of Michigan’s Tobacco Research Network and the American Cancer Society’s National Vice President for Tobacco Control.¹³⁵
• Heidi Goldstein is Executive Vice-President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Legal Officer.¹³³
• Ehsan Latif is the Foundation’s Vice President for Grant Management and Development (previously Program Director Health and Smoking Control). Latif formerly worked for the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease.¹³³¹³⁶
• Nicole Bradley is the Foundation’s Vice President for Communications (formerly Director for Communications). Bradley spent six years at Pepsi managing their media relations.¹³³
• Candida Nakhumwa is Country Director, Malawi for FSFW. She is responsible for managing strategic partnerships in Malawi’s agricultural sector. Nakhumwa previously worked for the Farmers Union of Malawi and the National Smallholder Farmers Association. Her profile was moved from “Staff” to “Executive Team” in September 2020.¹³³

An up-to-date listing of FSFW staff can be found on its website.

Board of Directors

• Pamela Parizek is the Foundation’s Board Chair and Managing Director at The Claro Group consultancy. Parizek has previously worked for KPMG, and Kroll Inc, a corporate investigations and risk consultancy firm.¹³⁷¹³⁸
• Vandana Abramson is Associate Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine with a specialism in breast cancer.¹³⁷
• Dyborn Chibonga is Regional Head for Malawi and Mozambique at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).¹³⁷ Chibonga was also on the Board of Directors of the African Institute of Corporate Citizenship (AICC) from 2010.¹³⁹
• Paul Gardner is the former Chairman of advertising firm Grey Group Australia and New Zealand, a WPP company.¹³⁷ Since 2012 he runs his own business consulting company, specialising in “branding and marketing communications as well as greenfield start-ups in Australia and overseas”.¹⁴⁰
• Corinna Lathan is the founder and CEO of AnthroTronix Inc, an engineering research and development company that develops products “in digital health, wearable technology, robotics, and augmented reality”.¹³⁷
• Angela Marshall Hofmann is the founder and president of World Strategies, a government affairs and policy consultation firm. Hofmann is also the Executive Co-Director and spokesperson for Farmers for Free Trade which lobbies for free trade agreements to support American farmers. She began her career as a senatorial advisor before working for supermarket giant Walmart where she ended up as a Vice President for International Corporate Affairs.¹³⁷ The headquarters of World Strategies is only a few miles from Walmart’s Arkansas base.

An up-to-date listing of the Foundation’s board members can be found on its website.

The appointed Board has no known direct tobacco industry links. In an open letter, former FSFW President Derek Yach stated that the appointed Board of Directors are “subject to stringent conflicts of interest policy. No Board member can have ties to tobacco companies. The Directors will receive reimbursement for their expenses and a modest honorarium for their service”.¹⁴¹

Previous Board Members and Management Staff

Senior Staff Departures

• David Janazzo was Interim Co-President and Executive Vice President of Operations and Finance and Chief Financial Officer of FSFW.¹⁴² As of October 2023 he was no longer listed on the FSFW team members page.¹⁴³
• William R. True was Chief Health, Science & Technology Officer and has held senior positions in tobacco, “e-vapor” and cannabis extraction industries.¹⁴⁴Between 2002 and 2015 True was Senior Vice President of Research and Development at Lorillard Tobacco Company.¹⁴⁵
• Amy Curry was the Foundation’s Chief of Staff.¹³³
• Derek Yach was the President of the Foundation and the former Head of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Tobacco Free Initiative. He was also Senior Vice President of Global Health and Agriculture Policy at PepsiCo.¹³³
• Brian Erkkila was the Foundation’s Vice President for Health, Science and Technology. Prior to that he spent seven years at the US Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products.¹³⁴ Erkkila left the Foundation to become Director of Regulatory Science at Swedish Match.¹⁴⁶
• Pamela Appel was Senior Director, Scientific Exchange and Communications. She had only joined the FSFW in October 2020.¹⁴⁷
• Michael J. Paskow was Senior Manager, Health Research, Health, Science, and Technology¹³⁴

Two board members left the FSFW board of directors in 2020

• Darshita Gillies is also a Director at Blu Dot Advisory and Founder and CEO of Maanch,¹³⁷ a platform which ‘matches donors and charities’ to work towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.¹⁴⁸
• Zoe Feldman was the Managing Director at Almanac Investments and previously worked for PepsiCo for eight years.¹⁴⁹ Feldman was no longer listed on the FSFW website as a board member as of August 2020.

Three executive team members were removed from FSFW’s website in September and October 2020:¹³⁴

• Carolyn “C.B.” Blanckmeister was Chief Health Technology Officer. She is an immunologist, and was previously employed at Pfizer, GSK and Roche pharmaceutical companies.¹³⁴
• Nitin Mittal was Chief Operating Officer and Chief Strategy Officer. He has a background in strategy management and previously worked at the Bill and Melinda Gates Global Good Fund, PATH, Microsoft and General Electric.
• Jim Lutzweiler was Vice President of Agriculture and Livelihoods at the Foundation, and former Senior Director of Global Public Policy at PepsiCo.

Additional staff departures included:¹³⁴

• Charles Gardner, Director, Health, Science and Technology
• Rob Henning, Director, Agriculture and Economic Diversification Programmes
• Michael Johnson, Director of Agricultural Science, Technology and Innovation
• Sarah Rajkumar, Director, Epidemiology, Health, Science and Technology
• Alexandra Solomon, Gender Specialist
• Matthew Waterson, Director, Operations and Security

All staff from the Agricultural and Economic Diversification Programme were also removed from FSFW’s staff page, as well as several assistant positions.¹³⁴

FSFW appeared to have a high turnover of staff. A website update in September 2020 indicated that it had lost 14 staff members, nearly 40% of its staff, in one week.¹³³¹³⁴

Previous Departures

• Heather Majewski was the Foundation’s Vice President for Shared Initatives (formally ‘Global Initiatives’ and prior to that’ Global Services’.¹³⁴ Her profile was removed from the FSFW website in February 2020.
• Ramla Benmaamar was Director, Global Scientific Affairs. She was removed from the FSFW website in February 2020.
• Tom Harding was the Foundation’s Chief Operating Officer (previously listed as Chief Administrative Officer and Chief Financial Officer).¹⁵⁰¹⁵¹. Harding was no longer listed on the website as of August 2019
• Martin Skancke was on the Foundation’s Board of Directors. He was no longer listed on the website as of August 2019. Skancke is the founder and General Manager of Consulting, having previously worked for the Norwegian Ministry of Finance and consultancy firm McKinsey.¹⁵²
• Andrew MacLeod is co-founder of Brexit Advisory Services, Visiting Professor at King’s College London in War and Security Studies, and Chair of Griffin Law.¹⁵³ He was on the Board of Directors at the Foundation until February 2019.¹⁵⁴
• Farhad Riahi was the Foundation’s Chief Health, Science and Technology Officer until 2019. Prior to that he was a Partner at consultancy firm McKinsey.¹⁵⁵
• Michael Sagner, a physician and Chairman of the European Society of Preventive Medicine, was a member of the Foundation’s Board until June 2018.¹⁵⁶¹⁵⁷
• Lisa Gable was also previously a member of the Foundation’s Board, but was no longer listed as such in January 2019.¹⁵⁸ Gable is a former US ambassador and Chairman Emeritus of the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation (HWCF), “a non-profit organization that aims to reduce obesity among children in the United States.” The Board of Directors of the HWCF includes executives from Nestle, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and General Mills.¹⁵⁹
• Mica Wilson was Vice President of Marketing and Communications at the Foundation. Before this, Wilson was Director of Global health at PepsiCo.¹⁶⁰ Wilson was no longer listed on the Foundation’s pages as an employee in January 2019.
• Alastair Bradstock, previously Director of the International Tobacco Control Programme at Cancer Research UK,¹⁶¹ was working in the Health and Agriculture Team of the Foundation. Bradstock was no longer listed on the Foundation’s pages as an employee in January 2019.

Relevant Links

• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World homepage
• Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids’ Industry Watch on the Foundation
• Read STOP’s report on PMI and the Foundation: Addiction at Any Cost

TobaccoTactics Resources

• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World
• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World: How it Frames Itself
• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World Centres of Excellence
• Philip Morris International
• Front Groups
• Influencing Science

TCRG Research

• The Philip Morris-funded Foundation for a Smoke-Free World: tax return sheds light on funding activities, T. Legg, S. Peeters, P. Chamberlain, A. Gilmore, The Lancet, 6 June 2019
• Big Tobacco is funding the anti-smoking lobby but leaked documents reveal the real reason why, A. Rowell, The Conversation, 13 March 2018

References

The post Foundation for a Smoke-Free World People appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

This page sets out the context for that objective, how the Foundation has attempted to achieve it and sets out counter-arguments to critique its approach. In summary, the Foundation has attempted to frame itself as:

• A legitimate creator of independent research
• A supporter of FCTC (including Article 5.3)
• A supporter of social justice issues (empathetic to the smoker, empathetic to farmers and LMICs)
• A supporter of measured regulation (i.e. harm reduction approach to tobacco regulation)

The Foundation has framed some of the public health community and tobacco control measures in these ways:

• Negative characterisation of the public health community
• Negative characterisation of public health measures such as taxation 

PMI’s Corporate Plan & Emergence of the Foundation for Smoke-Free World

Although on its website PMI talks about a smoke-free future,¹⁶³ PMI’s claims of commitment to harm reduction appear to be fundamentally undermined by its own documents, including its leaked 10 year Corporate Affairs Plan¹⁶⁴ written in 2014 (and published by Reuters in 2018).¹⁶⁵ These documents give an insight into PMI’s long-term plans before the launch of the Foundation in 2017.

These internal documents revealed that as recently as 2014, PMI was maintaining its attempts to “maximise commercial opportunities and grow market share” of combustible cigarettes.¹⁶⁴ In 2018, academics highlighted that “PMI has made no concessions to stop promoting combustible cigarettes, and continues its activities opposing FCTC policy implementation”.¹⁶⁶ This concurrent activity by PMI fuels the assessment of PMI’s funding of the FSFW as a conflict of interest.

The leaked documents also reveal PMI was concerned about denormalisation (of both itself and of the tobacco industry more generally) and wanted to be seen as “part of the solution” to the harm caused by smoking, to be a “trusted and indispensable partner” and “to establish the legitimacy of tobacco companies to be part of the regulatory debate on RRPs”.¹⁶⁴ The company outlined its plans to “find allies that cannot be ignored”,¹⁶⁷ and “amplify voices of ‘harm reduction’ supporters vs ‘prohibitionists’”.¹⁶⁴ PMI stated there was a need to use consultants as “door-openers”, and “strategists”, and to create “third party coalition building” to mobilise “an alliance of credible messengers”.¹⁶⁷

Given that PMI has since pledged US$1 billion to fund the work of the FSFW in 2017,¹⁶⁸ the Foundation may well be interpreted as the embodiment of these very plans.

Indeed, academic critiques of PMI’s involvement in tobacco harm reduction strategies have been made in 2018. Some have argued that PMI is using harm reduction arguments as a way to renormalise both itself and the wider industry, “using strategies that they have used for decades to fracture tobacco control and promote tobacco ‘harm reduction’ in an attempt to renormalize tobacco use” and “undermine government’s tobacco regulatory efforts”.¹⁶⁹ It has been suggested that the Foundation is “an apparent element of PMI’s plan to expand the market for its HTP tobacco products as well as rehabilitate the company’s reputation”.¹⁶⁹ Others have suggested that “the FSFW may function operationally to advance and amplify tobacco industry messaging and potentially exacerbate conflicts within public health”, and as a “ploy to boost PMI’s corporate image and possibly produce misleading science, while PMI continues to attack effective tobacco control policies and profit from cigarette sales”.¹⁶⁶

In yet another attempt to boost its own image, the Foundation claimed an affiliation with the goals of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) and the Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG) in the Frequently-Asked Questions section of its website on its Tobacco Transformation Index. It stated that as FSFW:¹⁷⁰

“shares common goals with organizations such as Tobacco Tactics and the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance, vocal critics of the Foundation and its work, we welcome opening a constructive dialogue with their leadership toward achieving the common goal – improving global health by ending smoking in this generation”.

In January 2020, SEATCA and TCRG wrote an open letter to Derek Yach, Director of the Foundation, to request that this statement be removed. In their letter, Ulysses Dorotheo, SEATCA Executive Director, and Professor Anna Gilmore of the TCRG denounced this “wrongful association with and by FSFW” and requested that the Foundation “cease and desist” from associating with SEATCA and Tobacco Tactics and remove both organisations’ names from its website.¹⁷¹ You can read the full letter here.

To read a more detailed article on PMI’s 10 year plan and the subsequent establishment of the FSFW, see: Big Tobacco is funding the anti-smoking lobby but leaked documents reveal the real reason why. 

Framing Itself, Its Science and those Who Oppose It

The following section provide examples of the above and presents some counter evidence which questions the Foundation’s characterisations of itself and others. This analysis does not represent an exhaustive list of the arguments the Foundation has made, nor an exhaustive list of counter-arguments.

Certificate of Incorporation

The Foundation’s purpose is to support “research and projects regarding alternatives to cigarettes and other combustible products and how best to achieve a smoke-free world and advance the field of tobacco harm reduction”.¹⁷² 

McCabe Centre critique: This leaves no capacity for the Foundation to focus on other tobacco control measures such as “prevention of uptake or cessation of use without replacement by other products”.¹⁷³

PMI Pledge Agreement with the Foundation

PMI are only obliged to continue to fund the Foundation if it has not “rescinded, amended or modified the Foundation’s Purpose” and has worked “exclusively in accordance with the Foundation’s purpose”.¹⁷⁴

McCabe Centre critique: “In other words, the cost of change – for example to focus on ending smoking other than through alternative products/harm reduction…would be the US960 million” pledged to the Foundation by PMI (or at least its outstanding balance). The pledged amount is therefore tied to the Foundation exclusively working on PMI-specified research priorities.¹⁷³

Bylaws

“The Certificate of Incorporation and these Bylaws may be amended or repealed and new Certificate of Incorporation or Bylaws may be adopted upon the affirmative vote of two-thirds (⅔) of the Directors then serving entitled to vote”.¹⁷⁵

McCabe Centre critique: It is possible for the Foundation to change its research priorities (at the cost of the significant funding pledged from PMI), but only if two-thirds of the Board of Directors backed a decision to do so. This board “will likely be a group inherently unrepresentative of the fields of tobacco control/public health,* as it is hard to imagine that it will include many (or any) individuals unsympathetic to the arrangement Yach has struck with Philip Morris”.¹⁷³ A majority vote to change the Foundation’s research priorities is therefore unlikely.

* On 1 February 2018 the Foundation announced its Board of Directors, which, at that time, included individuals (Lisa Gable, Michael Sagner, and Zoe Feldman) promoting collaboration with industry.¹³⁷

The Foundation frames itself as…

1. A legitimate creator of independent research

Claim: The Foundation repeatedly asserts that it acts independently from the tobacco industry, for example:

• In October 2017, Derek Yach, the President of the Foundation assured readers that there were “stringent safeguards in place to assure the tobacco industry has zero influence over the Foundation’s agenda or research;”¹⁷⁶
• Yach went on to state that “The Foundation is an independent legal entity separate and distinct from the tobacco industry, with independent governance, a peer-reviewed research agenda and strict protections against conflict of interest;” ¹⁷⁷ 

Counter evidence: A McCabe Centre analysis of the Foundation’s constitutive documents outlined here has highlighted several ways in which it appears that PMI would be able to influence the Foundation’s research agenda and practice.¹⁷³

Claim: The Foundation used Cohen et al.’s criteria which stipulate the circumstances under which industry-funded models of research may be appropriate,¹⁷⁸ stating that “The Foundation has put those principles and criteria into practice”¹⁷⁹¹⁸⁰

Counter evidence: However, Cohen et al. themselves have since been clear that the Foundation does not meet the criteria as set out in their paper, “the claim…the Foundation addresses their eight criteria…is incorrect in several instances”, concluding that “due to lack of independence, the potential for conflicts of interest, and clear public relations gains, the Foundation does not represent a tobacco industry-supported funding model that should be acceptable to the research community” ¹⁸¹

The Foundation’s very first research output, the “State of Smoking” study was conducted by a public relations firm, Kantar, which has been criticised for its history of working with the tobacco industry whilst simultaneous working for governments and health charities. ¹⁸²

Claim: The Foundation attempted to establish itself as a legitimate tobacco control organisation, through its statement in support of Bloomberg’s Philanthropies 2018 STOP initiative:¹⁸³

“Because of the tobacco industry’s decades of deception, the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World wholeheartedly supports the Bloomberg Foundation’s Stopping Tobacco Organizations and Products (STOP) campaign. We applaud the effort to monitor for public deception and “junk science” designed to cover up or mislead the public about the dangers of smoking or alternative products. We encourage independent review of all tobacco control science – including our own—and we encourage all tobacco control researchers to make their raw research data publicly available for secondary analyses, as the Foundation requires of its researchers”. 

Counter evidence: However, Kelly Henning from Bloomberg Philanthropies made it clear that the new global tobacco industry watchdog was needed exactly because of organisations such as the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World:¹⁸⁴

“What we face over and over again is this ceaseless pushback by the very well-funded tobacco industry against our work. Most recently, Philip Morris’s newly funded Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, announced not too many months ago, demonstrated how the tobacco industry uses every imaginable tactic to push back. That announcement made us stop and think that maybe there is more we should be doing to try to counter the tobacco industry’s interference with tobacco control. That was really what led Bloomberg Philanthropies to launch this effort”.

Claim: The Foundation has likened itself to the Truth Initiative:
“The Foundation’s bylaws, certificate of incorporation and funding agreement are unprecedentedly rigid and establish the Foundation as a completely independent organization, akin to the Legacy Foundation (now Truth Initiative)”.¹⁸⁵

Counter evidence: The Truth Initiative is a non-profit tobacco control organisation which was established as part of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between the tobacco industry and US states.¹⁸⁶
As such, its funding came from successful litigation against the tobacco industry.¹⁸⁷

In contrast, Philip Morris was instrumental in developing the Foundation along with Derek Yach (the Foundation “arose out of extended discussions with Philip Morris International”) and in the middle of 2018 was its sole funder.¹⁸⁸

Claim: In 2018, the Foundation outlined its plan to fund research centres:

• “Through the support of Centers of Excellence for science-based tobacco control research at academic centers around the world, the Foundation aims to develop the next generation of leaders and institutions to accelerate the end of smoking.¹⁸⁹
• And in an open letter from January 2018, Yach stated that “the Foundation shares your enthusiasm for a “centres-of-excellence” approach to our grant making. We anticipate the bulk of our funding will support such centres”.¹⁷⁹ 

Counter evidence: The tobacco industry has a history of founding research centres within universities, such as the PMI-funded Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research (CNSCR) at Duke University in North Carolina and the Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at the University of Nottingham funded by British American Tobacco.¹⁹⁰

The tobacco industry has also created non-university-affiliated research groups in efforts to build reputability around industry-funded science, such as the Council for Tobacco Research, which was formed in 1954 by US tobacco companies in an attempt to maintain uncertainty around the health harms caused by smoking.¹⁹¹

2. As a supporter of the FCTC

Claim: The Foundation has framed itself as a supporter of (and indeed, champion of) the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control:

• In October 2017, Yach stated “I was quite surprised when the World Health Organization (WHO) recently issued a statement mischaracterizing the mission of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, and wrongly suggesting the Foundation doesn’t comply with Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). As someone deeply involved in the development of the FCTC as a cabinet director and executive director at WHO, I know a bit about the FCTC. And it is clear the goals and objectives of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World are squarely in line with the FCTC and especially Article 5.3”.¹⁷⁷
• In the same blog post, Yach continued “Furthermore, the Foundation plans to eventually apply for WHO Non-State Actor designation as a philanthropic foundation. The Foundation and WHO have a shared objective – to rid the world of cigarettes and dramatically reduce smoking-related disease and death”.¹⁷⁷

In January 2018, Ehsan Latif (a key member of the leadership team at the Foundation) claimed that the Foundation “will support the FCTC by filling the gaps in the FCTC that have received inadequate attention or funding” and outlined these as Article 14 (cessation support), Article 17 (supporting tobacco farmers) and Article 18 (protect the environment) among others.¹⁹²

Counter evidence: Although the Foundation purports to be a supporter of the FCTC, its funding is provided by Philip Morris International which, according to a 2017 Reuters report, is “running a secretive campaign to block or weaken treaty provisions that save millions of lives by curbing tobacco use” and who describe the FCTC as a “regulatory runaway train” driven by “anti-tobacco extremists.”.¹⁹³

The Reuters report argues that specifically, PMI is attempting to undermine Articles 13, 15, 16, and importantly Article 5.3 which outlines the necessity for tobacco control research to be conducted away from the undue influence of the tobacco industry.¹⁹³
In September 2017, the WHO outlined that given that Article 5.3 of the FCTC “obliges Parties to act to protect public health policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry…that…Governments should not accept financial or other contributions from the tobacco industry or those working to further its interests, such as this Foundation”.¹⁹⁴

The WHO continued by saying that “there are many unanswered questions about tobacco harm reduction, but the research needed to answer these questions should not be funded by tobacco companies….when it comes to the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, there are a number of clear conflicts of interest involved with a tobacco company funding a purported health foundation, particularly if it promotes sale of tobacco and other products found in that company’s brand portfolio. WHO will not partner with the Foundation. Governments should not partner with the Foundation and the public health community should follow this lead”.¹⁹⁴

Further, research suggests that the tobacco industry has used the idea of having common goals with the public health community to its advantage. For example, the concept of harm reduction has been used to “facilitate access to, and dialogue with scientists, public health experts, and policymakers, presenting themselves as ‘partners, rather than adversaries’ who share a common goal”.¹⁹⁵

3. As a supporter of social justice

Claim: In several of its blog posts the Foundation emphasises that it is on the side of the smoker:

• “Our focus is on the smoker – not the concept of the “smoker”, but on the individual. We believe the experience of smoking is multifaceted and deeply personal. Indeed, the State of Smoking Survey findings reinforce our view that smoking is deeply integrated into most smokers’ daily lives, so quitting means more than just giving up cigarettes” ¹⁹⁶
• “We can easily forget what tobacco control is about when we only focus on data and laws. What matters is the real people, struggling every day. From a smoker trying to quit a habit they know is going to harm them, or a farmer wondering where their next pay check will come from” ¹⁹⁷
• Further, Yach uses quotes from recently published book ‘Natural Causes’ (Ehrenreich, 2018) to state that “to be a smoker is to be a pariah” and “as more affluent people gave up the habit, the war on smoking…began to look like a war against the working class” and that smoking could be seen as “a kind of self-nurturance” ¹⁹⁸

Counter evidence: Tobacco kills more than 7 million people per year, yet, industry and industry-funded bodies have long since portrayed themselves on the side of the smoker.

For example, the tobacco industry has marketed cigarettes to marginalised groups as a kind of empowerment (for example, marketing menthol cigarettes to African American men “framing blacks’ dignity with their right to consume products and services of quality and creating intersecting agendas by linking smoking to meanings of fairness and upward mobility”¹⁹⁹ and cigarettes conceptualised as symbols of emancipation and “‘torches of freedom”’ for women.²⁰⁰)
The tobacco industry is known to use front groups to befriend smokers – one tobacco-industry front group FOREST calls itself the “‘voice and friend of the smoker”.’ ²⁰¹

However, as the WHO pointed out in 2017, “PMI engages in large scale lobbying and prolonged and expensive litigation against evidence-based tobacco control policies such as those found in the WHO FCTC and WHO’s MPOWER tobacco control, which assists in implementation of the WHO FCTC. For example, just last year PMI lost a six year investment treaty arbitration with Uruguay, in which the company spent approximately US$ 24 million to oppose large graphic health warnings and a ban on misleading packaging in a country with fewer than four million inhabitants.”.¹⁹⁴

Such aggressive tactics seem at odds with the idea of a PMI-funded Foundation being on the side of the smoker.

Claim: In several of its blog posts, the Foundation emphasises that it is on the side of the tobacco farmer, and that one of its priorities is to ensure the economic security of low- and middle-income countries:

• “The issues facing the smallholder farmer are complex and intertwined. At the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, we will aim to solve those issues with a holistic approach that puts the farmer first. A new deal is needed for the smallholder tobacco farmer. Here our journey begins putting the farmer first” ²⁰²
• “Consequently, the additional effect of losing significant foreign exchange earnings from export sales of tobacco will virtually cripple countries like Malawi, which relies on tobacco exports for 81% of its foreign exchange earnings.”.²⁰².
• In March 2018, the Foundation launched its Agricultural Transformation Initiative in Malawi ²⁰³

Counter evidence: In the past the tobacco industry has created front groups, (such as the International Tobacco Growers Association) that appear to represent the needs of worldwide tobacco growers, but are in fact intended to be industry lobbying groups.
Tobacco companies such as BAT are members of the Child Labour in Tobacco Growing Foundation (ECLT), however, research suggests that tobacco industry involvement in trying to tackle child labour only supports their corporate social responsibility agendas, rather than affecting any real change, and appears to be used to distract public attention away from the low wages and low tobacco prices that the industry pays in countries such as Malawi.²⁰⁴

4. As a supporter of measured (rather than “onerous”) regulation

Claim: The Foundation also frames itself as a supporter of reasonable levels of regulation:

• In a blog in April 2018, David Janazzo wrote: “Regulatory regimes…must be properly aligned with the risk/benefit trade-off of combustible and other products. We believe this is particularly important for the poor smoker. Therefore, we support policies that tax combustible cigarettes at substantially higher rates than lower risk products”).²⁰⁵
• In the same blog post, Janazzo also argued that ‘light-touch’ regulation means industry can flourish, which in turn means that consumers are the ’winners’.²⁰⁶
• Janazzo went on to say that “pricing regimes not reflective of the risk profile, as well as negative perception and poor knowledge of product benefits versus risks based on the science, could hamper consumer confidence and thereby adoption at this stage. Bottom line, more research is needed quickly such that…regulators can place the appropriate protections around the products based on relative risk”.²⁰⁶

Counter evidence: Here, the main message appears to be that ‘lower-risk products’ should be regulated less heavily than combustible cigarettes, and that minimal regulation is favourable for all. In the past, the tobacco industry has worked to frame itself as a supporter of measured regulation and has often lobbied for “pre-emptive legislation that protects its own interests”²⁰⁷

The Foundation’s statements echo PMI’s own views on a ‘common-sense approach’ to regulation. On PMI’s website they state that ‘sensible, risk-based regulation of smoke-free products, combined with further restrictions on cigarettes, can help address the harm caused by smoking more effectively – and faster – than plain packaging and other traditional regulatory measures”²⁰⁸

Claim: The Foundation also appears to frame itself as a knowledge broker, in order to support cross-industry drives for regulatory change:

“The Foundation is ready to foster a discussion on this…using, rather than banning technology…and draw upon and help bring leaders from oil, gas, transportation and agriculture to give their views about how some future regulatory systems could more rapidly support innovation and detect potential threats”.¹⁹⁷ 

Counter evidence: The tobacco industry, in the past, has been adept at recruiting other industries (often through the use of third-party groups, such as the Risk Assessment Forum) to gain support for changes to regulatory architectures. For example:

• British American Tobacco worked with the chemicals, fossil fuels and pharmaceuticals industry to create and implement industry-friendly standards of evidence in policymaking in the EU, under the banner of ‘reducing red tape’ within the ‘Better Regulation’ agenda. ²⁰⁹
• PMI worked in the US to establish and implement industry-friendly standards of evidence around assessing health risks (e.g. through the Data Quality Act in the US and “‘good epidemiology”’ in the EU).¹⁹¹

Ways the Foundation frames the public health community and public health measures

1. Negative characterisation of the public health community

Claim: The Foundation uses several arguments to negatively frame those who question its legitimacy and the effectiveness of harm reduction technology:

• Framing those who oppose the Foundation as also opposing public health goals: “there are organizations who, rather than joining forces to tackle this major health crisis in a collaborative, productive spirit, are choosing to oppose the Foundation and its goal of helping smokers quit by advancing the science of tobacco control. This opposition runs counter to the goals of many of these institutions and their leading scientists: to advance public health…” ¹⁸⁵
• Framing those who oppose the Foundation as inhibiting free speech: ””Despite what we believe are reasonable measures to assure our independence, WHO’s FCTC secretariat issued a premature view that we are not independent and that there is little evidence to support harm reduction. On that basis, they recommend parties to the FCTC not interact or engage with us. Their statement has been used to justify additional measures, including refusing WHO health and medical journals to publish work by FSFW-supported scientists, and banning those who are associated with the Foundation from attending the 2018 World Conference on Tobacco or Health being held in my home city of Cape Town. WHO is based in Geneva..”. ¹⁹⁷
• Framing those who do not embrace tobacco harm reduction strategies as opponents of technological progress: “disruptive technology disrupts the status quo and stirs deep emotions that can undermine progress if poorly managed…every time a technology disruption occurs, people get upset: the Luddites of the 18th century, reactions to GMOs, concerns about driverless cars. What happens first is fear. “Ban it” is the natural response”.¹⁹⁷
• Framing early refusals to work with the Foundation as knee-jerk emotional responses: “Most of the disruption I’m seeing in the early phase is coming from the traditional tobacco control core. Deep emotional issues related to even considering engagement with the tobacco industry…have led to early reactions. These reactions are compounded by WHO’s views on excluding harm reduction from tobacco control”.¹⁹⁷

Counter evidence: The tobacco industry often attempts to shift arguments towards more emotive ones such as framing public health advocates as the enemy of industry and free enterprise, and denigrating members of the tobacco control community.

For example, attempts to discredit non-industry scientists who produce unfavourable research have been documented, such as academics being professionally attacked for speaking up about second-hand smoke²¹⁰ and others labelled ‘scientific extremists.²¹¹

2. Negative characterisation of public health measures other than harm reduction strategies

Claim: The Foundation appears to frame policy interventions which restrict the activity of the tobacco industry and act at a whole population level as ineffective:²¹²

“we have created smoke-free environments, mandated bigger health warnings, made cigarettes more expensive, and restricted advertising and marketing. Yet still, one billion people continue to smoke … there seems to be a disconnect between the development of policy and the benefit many smokers receive from policy”

Counter evidence: The tobacco control measures that the Foundation cites as ineffective here (smoke-free environments, health warnings, regulations on advertising, higher taxes) are known to be effective ²¹³

Also, the Foundation fails to acknowledge here that the tobacco industry have actively and aggressively fought against such policy interventions. These factors appear to explain why, of the estimated 8.3 million tobacco-related deaths occurring by 2030, 6.8 million will be in low- and middle-income countries (where the tobacco industry is successfully fighting tobacco control policies). ²¹⁴

Claim: The Foundation also appears to frame taxes on tobacco products as discriminatory:

“Cigarette taxes are regressive…a recent article regarding sin taxes describes them as designed to punish the poor… we argue that the effectiveness of incremental tax increases in many cases will likely be subject to diminishing marginal returns – with the costs being borne unfairly by the poorest among us”.²¹⁵

Counter evidence: The article referenced by the Foundation in this blog post²¹⁶ was written by Christopher Snowdon, member of the tobacco industry-funded, right-wing think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs.

This is an example of the Foundation amplifying tobacco industry-funded voices without being transparent about their industry ties.
Although the Foundation posits that taxes are discriminatory, tobacco itself is a health inequality issue, and socioeconomic inequities in tobacco consumption in Europe, for example, are “large and widening”.²¹⁷

Further, it appears that the tobacco industry has actually purposefully targeted working class young adults, seeing them as a “critical market segment to promote growth”²¹⁸

An increase in taxes is a proven method for reducing harms associated with tobacco use since “tobacco tax increases are the most effective and inexpensive way of reducing tobacco smoking prevalence, consumption initiation and inequalities in smoking”.²¹⁹ 

TobaccoTactics Resources

• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World
• Philip Morris International
• Influencing Science
• Influencing Science: Funding Scientists

TCRG Research Blog

• The Philip Morris-funded Foundation for a Smoke-Free World: tax return sheds light on funding activities, T.Legg, S.Peeters, P.Chamberlain, A.Gilmore, The Lancet, 6 June 2019
• Big Tobacco is funding the anti-smoking lobby but leaked documents reveal the real reason why, A. Rowell, The Conversation, 13 March 2018

Relevant Links

• Read the STOP report on PMI and the Foundation: Addiction At Any Cost: The Truth About Philip Morris International FSFW
• Foundation for a Smoke-Free World homepage

References

The post Foundation for a Smoke-Free World: How it Frames Itself appeared first on TobaccoTactics.